Friday, October 2, 2015

Dresden-based chip manufacturer GLOBALFOUNDRIES Fab1 in Dresden just has​ announced an employee reduction of around 800 (currently 3,700 people from all across the globe, and disciplines are employed).

Manufacturing in the semiconductor field is always accompanied by rather short production cycles (cars for example are still 'running' on a 5-7 year 'refreshment' cycle), capital intensive investment, long-lead planning, and highest level of quality (Zero-Defect the ultimate production goal).

Watch (before you continue to read) the passionate Welcome Speech by Ibrahim Ajami, former CEO of ATIC (Advanced Technology Investment Company), at the 2011 Abu Dhabi Media Summit - with a strong vision as that everything is possible.

As global demand shifts constantly, an rapidly increasing from formerly chips for PCs, then smartphones and tables (decreasing in size, and raising in complexity) the Internet of Things (#IoT) is the upcoming pulling-force. The Internet of Things or as the German version is called Industrie 4.0 (focusing on the production side of society) however is still in its infant days, many people and companies around are not yet fully aware of the positive or general implications that it will bring (besides of course questions around security, privacy and other issues) to their lives and businesses.

However as the City of Dresden, is currently part of a network of 52 cities around Germany as part of the Science Year 2015 - City of the Future, and working on creating the visions for the Future of the City of Dresden #DDzu2030 (common hashtag on Facebook and Twitter) this announcement from today should be taken as an opportunity to create the future for the city and the region (ranging as wide as Saxony, and beyond) bringing the creative potential into a (new) reality.

Why not engage passionate and well-educated employees not in full-time positions, rather reduce the working hours (of course also the income will decrease some), and on the other hand be able to co-create a future that is build on and around semiconductors and equipment/ applications that will be crucial for use in the IoT context, such as the CCS Telehealth-Ostsachsen (currently only in German) project?

Quite on the edge, and some distance from Dresden away, The Things Network, an initiative from Amsterdam that has the vision to enable cities with open-source IoT solutions not only managed to bring this to Amsterdam in an outstanding short time, but currently is scaling and spreading the word? Wouldn't it in this context make sense to put the complementary competencies together, and build on the strengths of a local chip manufacturer (with global connections), engage with Europe's largest microelectronics cluster (Silicon Saxony e.V.) and make #SachsenDigital a reality. Next week's semiconductor trade fair SEMICONEuropa 2015#SEMICONEuropa (Twitter activity) brings together all the local and global players in the field together to Dresden. Why not join in?

Even though the initial lines of this post may sound not positive this might open an unfamiliar path, joining in "U.Lab - Transforming Business, Society, and Self", and there already exists an international community locally in Dresden participating in this recent MOOC.